Blog Articles

The world of exercise has lost its way. In the age of super intensive, sweat and puke workouts we have lost the path of training to be functional and health for the rest of our lives and instead are consumed with what we are doing in the short term.

High intensity exercise is great and burns a lot of calories, but is also incredibly stressful on the body as a whole. A younger body recovers from this level of stress very well and can continue to work at this intensity for a long period of time, but eventually will get injured just killing every workout every single day.

As the body ages the ability to out work a crappy diet decreases very quickly. By the late 20’s and early 30’s most people are losing the battle, and try to overcome this with increasingly harder and harder training sessions.

As we approach 30’s and 40’s the strategy for optimizing your physical life is a combination of cleaning up your diet, and changing the way you train to vary the intensity of the sessions to allow for optimal recovery. The last components are flexibility and including exercises to safeguard your joints for the long haul.

Cleaning up your diet.

Abs are built in the kitchen. You can’t out work a crap diet. No questions here. There is not an exercise program in the world that is going to change that. Unfortunately most people try and escalate the intensity of their training to try and out work their crap diet, and get hurt, which then compounds their weight gain. As a general rule lean proteins, vegetables and fruit and whole grains should make up a majority of your diet. We can help dial in your diet more individually but this is a great place to start. Dietary programs like Whole30 are a good, broad spectrum starting point for changing how you eat.

Cycling Intensity of training sessions

This isn’t an article advocating just gentle breathing exercises and stretching. It is necessary to occasionally push your physical limits, but how often? At PowerAthlete we look for the minimum dose of intensity that it takes to produce a positive result (lower body fat, increased strength or stamina, etc). We cycle through intensity of exercises, variety of exercises and directions of loading the body to produce the ultimate goal of a bulletproof body, that can continue to be highly functional for a long period of time.

Flexibility

As we age joints lose their ability to move through a full range of motion so there for taking the time to stretch appropriately is necessary. When we say appropriately that means stretching what needs to be stretched and strengthening the joints that are weak and loose.

Safeguarding Joints

With our athletes we spend a considerable amount of time with exercises that prevent injuries and we do the same thing with our adults. If you can’t move, you can’t improve regardless if you are a 16 year old soccer player or a 45 year old attorney. All of our programs include movements that safeguard shoulders, backs, knees hips and ankles.

So the goal is to be as functional as possible, as long as possible. This is how we design all programs and dietary plans!

My 14 year old son is a AAA hockey player for the Columbus Blue Jackets and has been working out with Paul Manfre at Power Athlete all summer. Paul and his staff have been amazing to work with and I have already seen a significant difference in Tommy's speed, strength and agility both on and off the ice. His speed on the ice, especially his explosiveness from a dead stop, are noticeable as is his strength and body leverage fighting for loose pucks in the corner. His balance and stride have been enhanced along with his mobility and agility with his backward skating, a key skill for a defense man. I am very happy with Power Athlete and would recommend Paul and his staff to any hockey player looking to improve their strength, speed, shot, and agility on the ice.

I found this video, of an island muscle head, Alcindo Soares on a beach in Santa Maria, Cape Verde. He is a construction worker on the island, who has built this gym on the beach with scraps collected out of the ocean. That is impressive by itself, but what struck me as so cool was the effort the gym users were putting forth on this salvaged gym. In the U.S. we think that new and shiny is best, but there is something to be said for putting forth effort with what you have, not looking for the newest trend. Hard work trumps everything else eventually.

– Within 3 hours after competition • Mixed Meal – combination of protein, carbs and fat • Continue to hydrate • NO soda, alcohol, caffeine – Bus Ride Home • Athletes should be hydrating constantly • If you are not going to the bathroom at least once every hour you are not drinking enough

• Within 24 hours after competition Strictly Limit: – Alcohol, Soda, Caffeine in any form • Dehydration, lack of sleep, and lack of nutrients are not the keys to recovery

Youth Sport Conditioning Facts!

Myth: Strength Training is ineffectual at producing strength at younger ages because of their hormonal profile is not adequate

Truth: High intensity programs have been shown to increase strength in preadolescences in 6 weeks or less (Wescott 1979, Mersch 1989, Nielsen 1980, Ozmun 1991)

Myth: Injury rates with weight training are a continual source of concern and have been proposed as one of the major rationale for precluding children’s training with weights.

Truths: Injury rates are lower in weight lifting than in other sporting activities (Stone 1990)

Weight training programs are safe with athletes as young as 7 (Pierce et al, 1999)

Weight lifting can reduce the likelihood of injury in other sporting activities (Faigenbaum&Schram, 2004)

Despite the previously held belief that strength training was unsafe and ineffective for children, health organizations such as the American College of Sports Medicine, The American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Strength and Conditioning Association now support children’s participation in appropriately designed and competently supervised strength training programs. (John A Bergfeld M.D.)

Speed Training

Sprint training is a multi phase training process. All phases of training must be addresses to produce optimal results.

The basic formula for a faster athlete is:

Power=(Mass x Acceleration) x (^Distance/^Time) or:

small mass (lighter body weight)+big force (stronger body)+all body parts going in the right direction+all components of the body firing in a short amount of time=Run Faster!

Small MassThe less the athlete weighs the faster he/she is going to be. The bigger the athlete the stronger they have to be to produce more force.

Big ForceIt is a fact that 200 pound male athlete that squats 400 pounds is going to be faster than a 200 pound athlete that squats 200 pounds. Period. There is a reason world class sprinters (male and female) have muscles. The stronger/more powerful and lighter the athlete is, the faster they will be.

During sprinting the Ground reaction force is 5 times body-weight! Ground reactive force is the force the body exerts on the ground. Muscle forces, or the force due to the action of muscles can be up to 7 times body-weight! So for a 200 pound football player that can be upwards of 1400 pounds of stress in the muscles in the body during a sprint. All the ladder drills in the world alone aren’t going to prepare you adequately for these kinds of forces

All Body parts going in the right directionSprint mechanics. Broken into Back-side and Front-side mechanics, it is the ability to properly position your torso, arms and legs to produce the proper stride length as well full use of all of the power being produced by the body. The key here is the ability to efficiently use all the force produced by the athlete to propel them forward.

All components of the body firing in a short amount of timeBetter sprinters have shorter ground contact times.

World class sprint coach Charlie Francis was quoted as saying, “To go fast you need more force, the more force you apply to the ground the greater the displacement.”

Bottom line: Sprint mechanics play a part, but ultimately a lighter+stronger+ ground reactive athlete is going to be faster on the field. By far the most trainable aspect of sprint training is to increase the athlete’s strength and power levels!

Here is an example of how we view a pretty good day of nutrition for one of our athletes. This is for a competitive athlete, and the amounts of food would need to be adjusted to the goals of the athlete.